Oerdin's Iraq thread.

[Auntie H]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
That's something to tell the grandchildren!

You are assuming he was able to father children after that!!!

[Dinner]

herb never had children though he did get married to a nice black woman.

[Theben]

[Chemical Ollie]

That guy had balls (for a while)

[Dr Strangelove]

Fortunately the Iraqis don't use tiger traps.

[Stuie]

Bump for an update, please!

[Hueij]

Maybe a dumb question, but what is a 1SG?

When I was in the army (1975/76) our platoon sergeant (sp?) was a Korean War veteran and he had to put up with all these young career officers, knowing that he would never surpass them in rank. He was the only professional soldier I had any respect for...

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Hueij
Maybe a dumb question, but what is a 1SG?

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Sergeant

[Hueij]

Originally posted by PLATO


http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Sergeant

That site sucks in Opera

But thanks, so the guy Oerdin was talking about was something like the guy I was talking about. A vet that has to put up with career officers for the rest of his professional life. Sad really...

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Hueij

That site sucks in Opera

Sorry.

But thanks

NP

[Dinner]

Latest news.

Here is the latest news. Last Friday the dinning hall on base officially stopped serving lunch and cut back on what's available for breakfest on the grounds that Kellog, Brown, and Root (a subsidary of Hallburton) was having difficulty getting supply shipments from Europe. You'd figure that since Hallburton is charging $20 for breakfest and lunch ($25 for dinner) they'd want to bend over backwards to keep their facility open, but, I guess not. There are all sorts of rumors floating around some say Hallburton gets paid a fixed amount so if they don't deliver some of the meals then their profit goes up, others claim that Hallburton got fined for over charging the Army and so agreed to provide "free" meals for a certain period to cover the over charge. That means that if meals aren't served during that period or if the meals are smaller then ussual then Hallburton gets to walk Scot-free. I'm not sure I believe any of the rumors but I thought I'd report them just the same.

In other news one of our teams has returned after one month in Najaf. I have no reason to doubt their word but if things are as bad as they say they are then Iraq is much worse off then I've so far observed. The team spent 20 hours convoying to Najaf from Kirkuk with the 1-14 infantry and during that time they hit 6 different IED traps including one trap that consisted of 10(!!!!!) IEDs daizy chained togeather so that they would staff the whole convoy. After they got to Najaf they were involved in a two day long running gun battle with Sadr's militia which is bad enough but the worst is how the politicians handled the whole event. It seems President Bush and donald Rumsfield have taken a personal interest and so they are micromanaging the battle from back in Washington. They over ruled field officers and set up a "red zone" in Najaf where soldiers cannot fire into even if they are fired upon. Of course Sadr's forces quickly figured out where these red zone was and then began shooting at the soldiers from their new safe area. Even if an enemy troop column was spotted outside of the redzone they still had to get the local Marine General's permission to engage before they could open fire.

What the hell happened to Bush's promise that soldiers would be able to defend themselves when fired upon? Why they hell do they need a general to ok a target when it is obviously enemy forces? This whole thing stinks like President Johnson's micromanaging of the Vietnam war. Soldiers need to be free to defend themselves and local area commanders need to take advantage of targets of opportunity as they become available. The politicians simply need to set goals and then sit back and let the military proffessionals decide how best to achieve them. We should not let draft dodgers and people with no military experience condicend that they know better then people who have studied and trained for their whole lives on the subject and who are actually located right where events are occuring.

EDITED

[Barinthus]

Someone posted a quote from Sun Tzu in some other thread which said it all... to win a war, military needs to be free of political meddlings. Too bad battlefield commanders can't say screw you to the administration and do what's best but that's the price we pay for a military that answers completely to our civilian government which is a good thing in the long run. Hopefully Bush will wake up and let right people take over.

[Ted Striker]

Re: Latest news.

EDITED

removed nude pictures of AH

[Bloody Monk]

Oerdin,

I couldn't agree more with what you say. The condition is fubar and it is getting guys killed. But I can say that; you can't. We don't need for you to get court martialed for speaking about the CiC. Please change the wording of your post so you are not subject to UCMJ hassles. And keep your head down. Please.

Monk

[Barinthus]

mmmm I wonder if the first amendment applies to those in military? Surely he can voice his opinions as long it's at an appriorate time (not under fire or whatever) and as long he's still following orders.